A small historical point
 Rock’n’roll (teenagers’ music)
 My favorites













Time of SLAVERY (Africans and Europeans)
Emancipation and segregation : the BLUES
The RAGTIME
New-Orleans and the birth of JAZZ and SWING
Musicals comedy
COUNTRY music
30s the BIG BANDS
The MIDDLE JAZZ
The SWING ERA
The world of GOSPEL
Postwar the BE BOP
The RHYTHM and BLUES



The slave trade began.
The African slaves will survive keeping in mind
theirs songs and dances.
In the camp meeting where these songs will give
birth to changed "negro spirituals".





The North of America symbolized “the promise earth”.
Peasant communities sometimes black and white as poor as
each other are forced to live together.
And again it is the music that will allow exchanges.
Born and blues in the heart of the Mississippi.
Free, black or white, some adopting the guitar and began a life
traveling bluesman or evangelist.
The black man, a former slave, suddenly became a U.S. citizen.
The main creator is Scott Joplin ragtime, publishes and perforated
partition on piano rolls early examples of Afro-American music
"scholarly".
New Orleans is truly a city apart by the comings and goings of history it
has hosted different populations : Spanish, Creole, French, ... local laws
allowed blacks to come together to sing and dance on the square Congo
banned then elsewhere.
This is the city that will be born jazz. New Orleans has perhaps not
invented jazz in its own right but it gave its final color and inimitable.
With black jazz appear that indefinable notion of swing, a non-written
scores, swinging and bouncing the music.

City where you need to be heard for recognition.
Publishers, authors, producers and other
characters in the show business. It will also born
of great artists such as Armstrong, Bessie Smith,
Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, ...
Broadway is a place of celebration and
entertainment.
The popularity of country music also increases due to the
westerns Wild West.




Loudness, musical perfection, the black jazz is at its peak.
A New York are organized "battle of the bands" with pianists,
soloists, dancers, singers, ... in the movie "Kansas City" tour in 1996
we can see a few of them: Cab Calloway, Chick Webb, Earl Hines ....
Compete with the big bands white win world recognition.
1938 at Carnegie Hall to New York for the first time the authentic
African American music to white audiences is presented. This is the
golden age of jazz.
Regular attractions in nightclubs with great instrumentalists :
- Fats Wallers
- Louis Armstrong (trompet)
- Johnny Hodges (saxophone)
- Nat King Cole (piano)
- Ella Fitzgerald (famous singer)


Like the black bands are made white bands. Those
who choose jazz must copy and adapt to white
audiences, less hot and sweet rain.
It was during the Swing Era as the most American
youth sang and danced. Appear then "crooners" like
Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, ...



In the early twentieth century comes the first gospel songs:
mix of sacred music, blues, swing jazz.
Born and a great solo singer Mahalia Jackson, the famous
Golden Gate Quartet.
In 1969: this is the golden age for the gospel with "Oh happy
day". It is within the church that started the greatest singers
and musicians from Louis Armstrong to James Brown, Aretha
Franklin Whitney Houston.
The Be Bop jazz is the new protest, often confusing, very
virtuoso. Dizzi Gillespie (trumpet) and Charlie Parker
(saxophone) are considered the founders.
Technology with the old traditional blues is electrified.
And we know Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Witherspoon,
Wynonie Harris: the howler powerful voice who prepared
the voice of rock'n'roll.





50 years in the USA are marked a profound transformation of society:
technological and social ... The meeting of two racial communities will
create a music in which teenagers will not find themselves.
Mixing R & B and Country Western (honky tonk and rockabilly).
Personalities such as Fats Domino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, The
Platters, Elvis Presley, Bill Halley, Eddie Cochran, The Beatles.
With such legends as Ray Charles, James Brown, Otis Redding, Aretha
Franklin, Temptations.
During the 60s R & B, Soul music becomes.
FATS DOMINO :
Antoine Dominique Domino, Fats Domino was born in February 26, 1928 in New
Orleans. He is an American singer of rhythm and blues. This is one of the pioneers of rock
and roll. Pianist whose playing is often called boogie-woogie, he was influenced by Amos
Milburn. He is the author of Is not That A Shame rock and the most famous singer of the
ballad of 1940 Blueberry Hill.




Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 - July 6, 1971)
He was an American jazz musician, a charismatic, innovative and with exceptional musical
talent. He transformed jazz from a rough regional dance music into a popular art form.
He is probably the most famous jazz musician's of the twentieth century. He was the first who
was recognized for its trumpeter before developing throughout his career singing skills and he
became one of the most influential singers of his time. Louis Armstrong was, as they say, a
"good man", with a remarkable generosity.
Developed to adopt the son of his cousin Flora who disappeared shortly after his birth. He will
continue to take care of Clarence Armstrong, mentally handicapped, to whom he will give a
life annuity.
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Pemmican: is a singer, pianist, guitarist
and songwriter, born in December 1932. He was a pioneer
of rock and roll in the late fifties.
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson Berry (born in St. Louis, Missouri October 18, 1926) is a
guitarist, singer and songwriter. It is one of the most important artists of the rock and roll.
He influenced many other artists and his repertoire has often been taken (including his most
famous titles, Johnny B. Goode and Roll Over Beethoven). In 2003, Rolling Stone Magazine
ranked him the sixth best guitarist of all time and 25th greatest singer of all time;
The Platters :
were one of the most successful vocal groups of the early rock and roll era.
Their distinctive sound was a bridge between the pre-rockTin Pan
Alley tradition and the burgeoning new genre. The act went through several
personnel changes, with the most successful incarnation comprising lead
tenor Tony Williams, David Lynch, Paul Robi, Herb Reed, and Zola Taylor.
The group had 40 charting singles on the Billboard Hot 100chart between 1955
and 1967, including four # 1 hits.
Eddie Cochran (3 octobre 1938 au Minnesota - 17 avril 1960)
est un chanteur américain de rock 'n' roll et plus
particulièrement derockabilly.
Ray Charles (Ray Charles Robinson), nicknamed "The Genius"
(engineering) (23 September 1930 - 10 June 2004) is a singer, songwriter and
arranger American pianist whose career was full of different musical
styles: jazz, gospel , blues, country, rhythm and blues and the style he
created: the soul, the source of much of current music styles.
James Joseph Brown
He was born May 3, 1933 in Barnwell, South Carolina, and died December 25, 2006
in Atlanta, Georgia, known as The Godfather of Soul and The Hardest Working Man
in Show Business, is a musician, singer, songwriter dancer and producer. Initiator of
funk, he had a great influence on the soul, rhythm and blues, gospel and hip-hop.
James Brown is recognized as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth
century popular music and was renowned for his stage performances.
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American gospel, soul, funk,
rhythm and blues and jazz born March 25, 1942 in
Memphis (but spent most of his childhood in Detroit,
Michigan), nicknamed "The Queen of Soul" or still "Lady
Soul".
Otis Redding
He was born 9 September 1941 in Dawson (en) (Georgia), and died
December 10, 1967 in Wisconsin, is one of the greatest American singers of
soul music. A few days after the recording of his most famous song, (Sittin
'On) The Dock of the Bay, he died at age 26 in a plane crash, leaving behind
a dense work.




Francis Albert Sinatra
Frank Sinatra said, born December 12, 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey and
died 14 May 1998 in Los Angeles, is an American singer and actor, born
of a Sicilian father and a mother from Liguria (Italy).
The world-renowned crooner, nicknamed The Voice or Ol 'Blue Eyes or
The Chairman of the Board, he was the leader of the famous Rat Pack of
the mid-1950s to the mid 1960s.
He has sold over 150 million records.
The Temptations are an American vocal group known for their success in the
60s and 70s at Motown Records. The group's repertoire has included, during its
five-decade career, R&B, doo-wop, funk, disco, soul, and adult contemporary
music. Known for their recognizable choreography, distinct harmonies, and
flashy onstage suits, the Temptations have been said to be as influential to soul
as The Beatles are to pop and rock.








Nickname :
The King
Elvis Aaron Presley
He was born January 8, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi.
He died August 16, 1977 in Memphis, Tennessee.
He was the musical culture and considerable global
influence. Precursor of Rock music and marketing, it
is considered as a major artist of the twentieth
century.
Main activity : Singer/Actor
Music : Rock 'n' roll, Blues, Country, Gospel, Pop,
Pop rock, Rockabilly, Rhythm and blues, Rock
Favorite instruments : guitar, piano, bass
The
King
I just want to say that this work has allowed
me to discover the history of American
music originated, its richness and diversity.
Involve faces, names and voices that have
rocked my childhood because I found some
CD covers.
I hope to give you want to learn more about
American music but also his amazing story.